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Banana Bread

Made with bananas nobody was going to eat anyway. That's the secret.

Makes

One 9×5 loaf, about 12 slices

Hands on

15 min

All in

1 h 15

Oven

175 °C (350 °F)

One step at a time, screen kept awake

What you need

• 3 largevery ripe bananas — about 1½ cups (375 ml) mashed
• ½ cup (125 ml)butter, melted and slightly cooled
• ¾ cup (180 ml)brown sugar, packed
• 2eggs
• 1 tsp (5 ml)vanilla
• 1¾ cups (425 ml)all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp (5 ml)baking soda
• ½ tsp (2 ml)salt

How it goes

1. 1

   Heat the oven to 175 °C (350 °F) and grease a 9×5 loaf pan.

2. 2

   Mash the bananas in a big bowl. Really mash them — lumps stay lumps.

3. 3

   Whisk in the melted butter, then the brown sugar, then the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla.

4. 4

   Add the flour, baking soda and salt on top and fold just until no dry flour is left. Ten or twelve strokes. Overmixing is what makes it rubbery.

5. 5

   Scrape into the pan and bake 55–60 minutes, until a knife in the middle comes out with a few moist crumbs and no batter.

6. 6

   Cool 10 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto a rack. It slices best once it is properly cool, which nobody ever does.

A couple of things

• The blacker the bananas the better. If they are not there yet, 15 minutes in a 150 °C oven in their skins will do it.
• Freezes whole, wrapped, for three months. Toasts beautifully on the second morning.

Contains : wheat, eggs, milk